The slicer proper does not dunt his ball into the ground; rather does he sky it too high into the air. This he achieves by cutting more or less outrageously across the ball and finishing with his hands round his waist instead of thrown well out in front of him. Sometimes it may be that he has fallen into too circular a method of swinging. He takes the club back too low, round his waist instead of over his shoulder, so that it finishes in a corresponding position. Sir Walter Simpson has well said that many golfers misconceive the nature of a drive, and * visualize a swing as a scythe-like motion, not as a straight, forward sweep.' The remedy here is an obvious one, namely to take the club up higher and well over the shoulder. I may add that I have sometimes found it very useful, when suffering thus, to determine that the right arm shall brush against the right side in the down swing and to concentrate the mind chiefly on this point. This seems to throw the arms well out in front of the body in the follow-through, and to prevent them from sidling away to the left in accordance with their natural and vicious propensities.

Another slicer of a slightly different kind habitually swings his club too far out to the right, so that the arms lose the support of the body and are almost certain to cut across the ball on the way down. This poor cowardly fellow has probably tried to make allowance for his slice instead of wrestling with it. He has aimed further and further to the left of the proper line. Now he should take up a bolder and more defiant attitude, and aim with moderation but quite deliberately in that direction of which he is so greatly afraid. This alteration in his stance will often enable him to attain his object, namely, the taking of the club decidedly more inwards in the up swing.

Finally, slicing can also be produced by too vigorous a dropping of the right shoulder in the down swing, sometimes accompanied by a pronounced falling back of the body after the ball is struck. This method of hitting is generally characteristic of those who suffer from too exuberant a freedom of body movement and too much bending of the knees.

As compared with slicing, hooking is one of the most harmless things in the world. A slight natural tendency to hook may be regarded on the whole as a blessing, and intentional hooking is an art that can be brought to great perfection. This, however, is beyond my elementary scope, and I deal here only with hooking in an exaggerated form, when it is a vice and not a virtue. A bad attack of pulling very seldom lasts long, and can generally be cured without much difficulty. There are, to be sure, those who have acquired a trick of turning over the right wrist too soon and too much, and this is a habit that may take some eradicating. Again, those who hold the right hand very markedly underneath the club are always credited with being constitutional hookers, and no doubt this grip of the right hand does conduce to hooking, but it is also apt to conduce to wildness of all kinds, and I have seen the most chronic and confirmed slicers who held their clubs in this way.

Speaking generally, however, by far the most common cause of hooking is hitting too hard, and this is a fault that ought to be easily abated. Also, because the slightly hooked ball is the longest that can be driven, there is a great temptation, in addition to that of hitting hard, to face rather out to the right and make allowance for the hook. In the strictest moderation this may be all very well, but the danger of exaggeration is great. To stand further round to the left and hit more gently will generally effect a cure.

Sclaffing, which is, being interpreted, hitting the ground behind the ball, is another of the occasional diseases, and in its occasional form may be disregarded. Sometimes it is chronic, and then it is almost sure to bespeak a swing too straight up and down; the remedy is naturally to be found in a swing that is flatter.

Habitually to mistime the shot is lamentably common, but this disease is almost too vague a one to justify any specific prescription. It is, moreover, essentially one for general treatment. There is usually something radically wrong in the up swing, and the best thing to do is to verify with care and patience the nature of that upward swing. It is generally quite futile to try deliberately to put in some extra flick of the wrists at the right moment. It is far more to the purpose to swing carefully and easily, and so give body and club the chance of arriving at the ball in the right position. Mistiming can of course be of two kinds. A man may come down too soon on the ball or he may come too late; the hands may come down in front of the club head or behind it. The latter fault, however, is very rare; it is infinitely more common to be in too much of a hurry. The player who is constantly too soon may be referred back to the description of a foundering style; it will probably be a fairly good description of his own.

Turning now to iron clubs, I may perhaps venture to pass by the longer shots, the full cleek shot and the very nearly full iron shot. As regards these, a player is very likely to commit much the same faults as he does with his wooden clubs. No peculiar treatment, unless it be a general shortening and stiffening up of the whole swing, need be recommended.

Now, as regards the strokes that range from a half-shot downwards, it seems to me that faults cannot be separated into quite such clear-cut divisions as can those in the play with wooden clubs. A player is not so often, as regards his half-shots or wrist-shots, a chronic slicer or hooker or topper; rather is he, I fancy, a general muddler. If he has no one besetting sin, it is not because he is virtuous, but because he is so sinful through and through, and therefore the sermon or prescription suitable to him should be of a more general character.

I should say that the two big, all-pervading faults in the average golfer's iron play are those of hurrying too much and not standing still enough. The great thing in iron play - I have said this before - is control; the whole performance is to be, comparatively speaking, a stiff one. There is apt to be with most players far too much movement of the feet, a movement that naturally begins with the left foot. I have certainly observed in my own case that when I am playing my irons least badly, I am firmest on my feet, and I have sometimes cured other people by telling them not to dance on the left toe. Moreover, the comparative immobility of the feet is a noticeable feature in the style of the best iron players. To allow anything more than the suspicion of a turn of the left foot when playing a comparatively short pitching shot must be unnecessary and wrong, but it is very commonly seen nevertheless. Similarly, it must be a sounder policy to finish these shorter shots with both feet planted firmly on the ground. The longer the shot the more movement will be necessary and allowable, but to keep as still as is humanly possible is a sound working rule.